Hello and welcome to Cheftalk.
We are a fairly broad church here, with members from around the globe (I'm Scots) - and we have lots of culinary students on the site, too. We even have a separate forum for them - so you may want to give it a look-see!
The wikis, blogs, reviews, articles and photography on the site are second to none, and you should try to make time to view some of them - not just for knowledge, but for inspiration, too. Feel free to join in on any thread you find interesting, or start your own in the relevant forum. Please note that the professional fora are read-only for those of us not currently involved in the culinary trades/professions - although they still make interesting reading.
Hope to see you around the fora!